 |
|
|
|
« Back to Opinion & Analysis
Government Lobbyists Paid with Tax Dollars
Editorial for the Houston Community Newspaper, Inc.
Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
March 27, 2008
Are you aware that governmental entities use our tax dollars to hire lobbyists to promote the growth of government and oppose tax limitations? They do this despite the fact that there are laws on the books in Texas which prohibit this activity. Unfortunately there are no penalties for violating these laws.
The Texas Associations of Counties which is funded by taxpayer dollars from county governments spent approximately $250,000 for 15 lobbyists, during the 79th Texas Legislative Session, who opposed appraisal caps and limitations on government spending. During the same session, 541 governmental entities spent $52.6 million tax dollars to hire lobbyists to promote government programs in Texas. These entities included city and county governments, school districts, and utility and water districts.
Do you think that these lobbyists were paid to promote a decrease in the tax burden on the citizens and a limit on the growth of government?
Most productive taxpaying citizens support the limitation on the growth of government by limiting the tax revenues. Do you want your tax dollars spent on lobbyists to oppose this aim?
The free enterprise system has produced the business growth that has made Texas the economic force that it is today. Governments do not create wealth for society rather they extract wealth from the productive. Civil government entities, whether local or state, siphon off capital from the producers and use it to create government agencies, bureaucracies and entitlement programs that justify the existence of an ever growing number of bureaucrats who want to control the lives of people like you and me. The latter scenario is good for politicians who use our tax dollars to pay for the benefits which they promise the non productive in exchange for their votes.
The free enterprise system is the goose which lays the golden egg, creating real, productive jobs and wealth for society through the voluntary exchange of goods and services. Most people who work in the private sector appreciate the individual freedom which this economic system offers. Then there are those who desire that government provide womb to tomb security for everyone by increasing taxation and government programs. This ends up choking to death the goose which has been laying the golden eggs.
Between 1980 and 2004, all government spending in Texas increased by 486%. Yet the per capita income for Texans rose only 178% by comparison.
To limit growth Texans need a Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR) which would restrict the growth of government to the percentage growth in population plus inflation. If this had been in effect in 1980 then governments would have only grown 187% rather than the 486% which they did.
Who do you think opposes TABOR? Government paid lobbyists do.
The practice of government entities using taxpayer money for lobbying purposes is counter productive to the goal of limited government. Legislation should be passed in next year’s Texas Legislature which would impose severe penalties on those governmental entities that engage in this activity.
About Conservative Republicans of Texas
Steven F. Hotze, M.D. is president of Conservative Republicans of Texas and founder of Hotze Health & Wellness Center in Houston, Texas.
|
|
|
|
|
|
